Number Lines

Math this week was themed around number lines.  Each lesson began with the students making an estimate for how many items were contained in a jar.

They wrote their estimates on a sticky note which they then placed on a number line in the approximate place their number would be.  For this jar, they placed their estimates between 20 and 50.  The special helper then counted the poker chips and there were 27. 

 

One follow-up lesson carried over 3 days.  I Spy Number Line was the activity.  Students chose from a variety of number line cards which varied in level of difficulty (pink for numbers 1-20 for the younger learners, 20-100 in yellow, then 100 plus in green).  The job was to fill in the missing numbers.

Having a wide variety of learners means that lessons have to be accessible to all students.  They had to choose which number lines suited them and could adapt the level they chose depending on their success as they proceeded to work through the cards.  The following learner chose 2 pink cards and then challenged themselves to yellow cards.  Each student then made MY NUMBER LINE on the bottom of their sheet, which I copied for all the students to do the next day.  They really enjoyed working to complete each other's number lines.

These types of activities reinforce the concepts of ordering, printing, comparing and estimating numbers, as well as counting by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s and 100s.